So i woke up this morning at 6 and went to turn on the TV, the news came on and said something about Japan, i was shocked to find out an Earthquake had struck the north eastern coastal part of Japan, located 250 miles from Tokyo. The devastating earthquake killed hundreds and reached 8.9 ON THE RICHTER SCALE!!!!!! And has officially been recorded the 6th most powerful earthquake since the VERY early 1900's when the Richter Scale was first constructed. The earthquake shook buildings vigorously, destroyed roads and highways, and even caused 4 nuclear power stations to emergency shut down. Several factories have caught fire and even an oil refinery went up in flames. The destruction this earthquake has caused is catastrophic. However, everything didn't end there, a few hours later due to after shocks from the earthquake a Tsunami was formed and hit the north eastern coastal side of Japan with devastating results, it destroyed buildings and even some shelters. The thousands that survived the earthquake merely were killed off as the Tsunami hit, waves reaching up to 10 METERS HIGH! The Shockwaves from the earthquake reached as far as Chile on the western coast of America and hit other neighbouring countries such as the Phillipines, Taiwan, Hawaii, the northern coast of Australia and others.

I am not just here to inform but to express my absolute shock at this natural disaster that occurred and would like everyone to take a moment of silence, thought, whatever you think is necessary to think about all the families and lives that were lost. It saddens me most when natural disasters occur and it is only a matter of years until they get more frequent....and much more worse.

We had Tsunami warnings all the way in the Puget Sound, of all places.
That should just be a testament to how bad this is. I really can't believe people are saying "They had it coming." No one has that coming, or even deserves to have such a thing happen to them.

My brother was supposed to go to Japan in about 10 days, at this point he can't anymore but, damn, at least he wasn't already there.

Wow, that far huh? Geez it truly is shocking what mother nature can achieve. Nobody ever has that coming to them, like you said hun, it is wrong to say that, depending on people beliefs and such the cause is both environmentally and humanly caused, to say someone had it coming is like saying it is their fault, it really is not.

For once i respect my government and the royal family back here in the UK for sending their condolences and troops over to Japan to aid them in retrieving the hundreds of missing people. I just hope Japan is able to pick themselves back up and look to a brighter future, like they did when the Kobe Earthquake struck.

It is truly shocking indeed. Since I am far far away from Japan (The Netherlands, we never have earthquakes or any other natural disasters, just floodings), I find it a bit hard to imagine what's it like, but I cannot stand the attitude some people have towards it. I hope Japan is able to recover from this!

Its nearly just as powerful as the megathrust earthquake that struck on boxing day 2004, reasuring 9.1 on the ritcherscale. I was really shocked to hear this news as soon I turned on the TV too, first thing I heard was "Japan has been hit by a Tsunami". My heart really does go out to them, if you have seen on the news about whats happening right now, wouldn't you expect people to panic buy and try to get out of the country as soon as possible? The Japanese arn't like that, they're very dignified and a brought up to respect everything around them (shame some poeple in the west don't learn from them). Due to Japan's status in the world, I don't think this will be as devastating as the 2004 Tsunami but that's just my guess. Have you seen the Nuclear Plant explosion on the news? Just hope its not a reflection of what happed at Cherynobyl in the 1930-40s. =O

I've just heard about it and I am so sorry for all the people who lost their homes, families, relatives and friends in this catastrophic disaster.
My friend was really worried about her Japanese friends who live there, so am I
I live in Europe so it seems hard to believe something like this might happen here, but no one knows. I just hope, from the bottom of my heart, that this nightmare ends soon.

For all the victims of this tragedy, a minute of silence by my side.

I would like to ask everyone who reads this to join me in a minute of silence starting at 18:00 (UK Time) [You can look up what time that will be fore you on Google] for all the people who lost their lives in the worst Japanese event that has ever happened. I know some of you may pass this by, but please a minute is all i am asking. So many families, friends and relatives are suffering because of the loss of their loved ones, so a minute of thought and silence is the least we can do. Our thoughts will be with all those who lost someone dear to them x

I agree Tiggy. Dark times are ahead of these people and we can't do much, but a minute of silence by our side is all what we can do now.

All we can say about this tragedy is that our hearts are with Japanese people in trouble wich have lost everything because of this Tsunami...i'm hoping for the number of victims to stop immediatly

Personally, i don't think I'll forget the scenes from the TV news channel i saw yesterday

Its so sad.
This is like Hurricane Katrina for them but its much worse.
We Can't Imagine the pain, the chaos, anything.
We Just can't imagine it.
May They Get Better And Rest In Peace for Those who have Fallen due to this Horror.

Actually i'm refusing to see TvNews or to read Newspapers...it seems like someone wanna punch me with all of this deaths and i really can't stand it.

I was already breathless when i've seen all of those waters becoming black while destroying so many houses and fields... i don't know if i could feel worse watching what's happening =(

Like Chi said, the thing is that right now the only problems aren't the consequences of the tsunami or the aftershocks. I'm the kind of person that needs to watch the news every day and even more when these things happen. And every time I turn on the TV all I watch are more problems in the nuclear reactors and security measures against radioactivity. Tokio is just at 250km from Fukushima and there's already a 30km "safety ring" around the nuclear plant and nobody knows what's going to happen because they can't shut down the reactor cores. But I admire the integrity of the Japanese who have not succumbed to chaos, and if that would happen right now in other country not so prepared for an earthquake like Japan it would be even worse.

As Laura, I'm also scared about the danger of the reactors. I just saw the TV news and when they told that japanese people should take all the food they can, and close their houses in order to protect themselfs from the danger... it feels terrible. It makes me wanna cry. I wish I could do something. And not only donate money. Something big. But I can't. That makes me feel angry... u.u

I really admire Japan. As Chi said, in those cases, you expect people to panic and try to escape from the country. But they're in calm. I really admire them. My heart and thoughts go with them.

It's so sad to think about how much Japan is suffering right now. : /
What pisses me off are the stupid people proclaiming that the 'end of the world' is here and it's 'only a matter of time' before the same thing happens all around the world.

People are immature. Poor Japan. <3 I've already donated several times, and I'm thinking about bidding on something in http://community.livejournal.com/help_japan/ or something like that. x_x

It seems Japan are just having more disasters, it started snowing which made it so much harder to find anyone in the debris and there was another earthquake but not as bad, it reached a scale of 6.1. It must be so awful for them T.T

My opinion about the whole thing:


Yes, it's horrible what happened to them and I hope that nothing worse happens to Japan and I've supported them by donating money for the Red Cross, but there's just too much drama and exaggeration in the media about the whole thing and it's getting annoying imo. I mean, Japan is the safest country in the world when it comes to earthquakes, and considering the high Richter scale dimensions of this last one, there weren't "too much" victims, less than 10,000 confirmed dead victims in a 9-richter earthquake isn't a lot. Also, Japan is not a poor country, on the contrary, it's the 3rd largest world economy after USA and China so they won't have as much trouble rebuilding and fixing everything when comparing to Haiti (which had more than 300,000 victims and is one of the poorest countries in the world).

And yes, it's also bad with the nuclear reactors but the radiation that's come out of them won't cause a new Chernobyl or anything.

Spoiler:
	inb4 shitstorm